Scoville Hall Redux
Three years after it was destroyed by fire and 18 months after a high-profile attorney intervened in a protracted dispute with an insurer, demolition of the remains of Scoville Hall, a parish hall and community center owned by the Amagansett Presbyterian Church, has begun. A building permit for the work was issued on Nov. 19, and reconstruction, by Ben Krupinski, an East Hampton builder, is imminent.
“There should be no more hurdles,” the Rev. Steve Howarth, the minister of the church, said Tuesday morning as work got under way. The building is expected to be completed within a year.
The Meeting House Lane structure, which was dedicated as the church’s parish house in 1925 and later named for the Rev. Clarence Beecher Scoville, who led the congregation from 1919 to 1943, was destroyed in the early hours of Oct. 15, 2011. More than 100 firefighters from five districts spent three hours fighting the blaze.
A three-year dispute with Peerless Insurance, a subsidiary of Liberty Mutual Insurance, followed. The disagreement drew the intervention of Barry Slotnick, an attorney who has represented such clients as the disgraced former congressman Mario Biaggi, the “subway shooter” Bernard Goetz, and the mob boss Joe Colombo. Mr. Slotnick owns a house on Meeting House Lane.
A settlement, reached last month, was $422,000 greater than the insurer’s initial offer; Mr. Howarth called it close to a realistic estimate of the cost of replacement. Along with Mr. Slotnick, Edward Williamson of the Young Adjustment Company was instrumental in reaching the settlement, said Mr. Howarth.
The minister told The Star last year that the long delay in demolition of the charred remains was as frustrating to him as it was to his neighbors, but that the insurer’s initial settlement offer had been deemed very low. “Accepting a less than equitable settlement doesn’t feel right,” he said in May 2013, adding that neither did it feel right to the community.
At issue was Scoville Hall’s foundation. The insurer said it should remain and a new structure be built on top of it. Britton Bistrian, a member of the church whose firm, Land Use Solutions, provides construction management among other services, disagreed. “Due to the era of the building construction, it is likely there is very little if any structural support, from steel reinforcement to proper footings,” she told The Star last year. “It is my opinion that the new building should be constructed on a new foundation meeting all present-day construction codes and standards of good building practice.”
The new structure will be built on the same footprint as the original. According to Mr. Howarth, its exterior will recall the 1920s Scoville Hall. The interior, however, will be significantly different, to meet the church’s and community’s current and future needs. Above a basement, which will be used for storage, the first floor will house meeting rooms, a reception room, a kitchen, and the minister’s study. The second floor, with cathedral ceilings, will house a dining and banquet hall. All levels will be accessible by an elevator.
As it has done in the past, the church will offer Scoville Hall as a meeting place for groups serving Amagansett and the surrounding hamlets. Before the fire, it was home to the Amagansett satellite of the East Hampton Food Pantry, a congregation of the Church of the Nazarene, the Hamptons Shakespeare Festival, two Masonic lodges, and several 12-step groups.
While members of the church and community have contributed over $125,000 to Scoville Hall’s reconstruction, another $400,000 is still needed, Mr. Howarth said. Contributions can be sent to the church at P.O. Box 764, Amagansett 11930 or through ScovilleHall.org.